Hundreds of plants, animals in line for federal endangered species protectionap ^ | September 29, 2011

The Obama administration is taking steps to extend new federal protections to a list of imperiled animals and plants that reads like a manifest for Noah's Ark - from the melodic golden-winged warbler and slow-moving gopher tortoise, to the slimy American eel and tiny Texas kangaroo rat.

...

With a Friday deadline to act on more than 700 pending cases, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service already has issued decisions advancing more than 500 species toward potential new protections under the Endangered Species Act...

Patrick Parenteau, an environmental lawprofessor at the University of Vermont. "They are moving through this large backlog at a fairly crisp clip now. This is the largest number of listing actions we've seen in a very long time, in decades."

Also among species that advanced for further consideration are 35 snails from Nevada's Great Basin, 82 crawfish from the Southeast, 99 Hawaiian plants and a motley cast of butterflies, birds, fish, beetles, frogs, lizards, mussels and more from every corner of the country.

Some have languished for decades on a "candidate list" of species the government says warrant protection but that it lacks the resources to help.

The flurry of recent action could help revive Obama's standing among wildlife advocates upset over the administration's support for taking gray wolves off the endangered list in the Northern Rockies and Upper Great Lakes, among other issues.

Barack Obama’s Department of Justice will ask the Supreme Court to eliminate a long-standing legal precedent that protects religious organizations from government regulations.

The department “is going against what almost every court has decided … it has has taken an outlier position,” said Richard Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law & Religion at Emory University.

On Wednesday, lawyers will present their oral arguments to the Supreme Court in “Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”

Cheryl Perich taught religion and a secular subject at the Michigan Hoasanna-Tabor school until she fell ill in 2004. When the school replaced her, she sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She lost the first round in 2004, but her lawyers persuaded the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati to rule in her favor last year.

The church had argued that her job was not covered by employment law because it was religious and so shielded from federal regulation under the traditional “ministerial exception.” That’s a long-standing term used in courtrooms to describe religious employees’ exemption from secular employment law.

The exemption is a legal spin-off from the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. That is part of the First Amendment, and was adopted in 1791 to shield religious institutions from government regulation, such as the creation of state-funded established churches similar to the Church of England.

The administration’s legal brief asks the court to eliminate this ministerial exemption, and to make all but a few core religious jobs subject to secular employment law.

If the administration’s claim is approved, government-appointed judges “could impose ministers on churches against their will,” said Luke Goodrich, a legal council at the Becket Fund, a religious-liberties group.

(CNSNews.com) - Bantering with the audience at a fundraiser in St. Louis yesterday, President Barack Obama bragged about a new regulation, proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services, that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has denounced as an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty.”

"Darn right!" an audience member at the fundraiser shouted as Obama described the regulation.

“Darn tooting!” Obama said back.

The proposed regulation, designed to implement part of Obamacare, will require all private health plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives--including those that cause abortions—without charging any fees or co-pay. These regulations were drawn to implement a provision in Obama’s health-care law that calls for all health-care plans to cover “preventive services.”

Combined with Obamacare’s mandate that all individuals must buy health insurance, the “preventive services” regulation would require all American Catholics to buy health care plans that pay for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortions--all of which violate Catholic moral teaching.

A “religious exemption” in the regulation is so narrowly drawn that it does not include any lay Catholics, or any Catholic hospitals, charitable organizations, or colleges or universities. Thus, many major Catholic institutions in the United States would be forced to choose between dropping health insurance coverage for their employees and students or violating the moral teachings of their own church.

In comments on the regulation submitted to HHS last month, the Catholic bishops called for the regulation to be “rescinded in its entirety” and described the proposal as “government coercion of religious people.”

"Indeed, such nationwide government coercion of religious people and groups to sell, broker, or purchase 'services' to which they have a moral or religious objection represents an unprecedented attack on religious liberty," the bishops said.

At a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at the Renaissance Hotel in St. Louis last night, Obama touted the “preventive services” regulation to an appreciative audience.

“And, yes, we passed health care reform because no one in America should go bankrupt because somebody in their family gets sick,” said Obama, according to the official White House transcript of his remarks.

“Insurance companies can’t drop your coverage for no good reason,” said Obama. “They won’t be able to deny your coverage because of preexisting conditions. Think about what that means for families all across America. Think about what it means for women.”

At that point, an audience member shouted: “Birth control.”

“Absolutely. You’re stealing my line,” said Obama.

“Breast cancer, cervical cancer, are no longer preexisting conditions,” Obama continued. “No longer can insurance companies discriminate against women just because you guys are the ones who have to give birth.”

At this point, a member of a laughing audience shouted out: “Darn right!”

“Darn tooting,” Obama answered back—to laughter. “They have to cover things like mammograms and contraception as preventive care, no more out-of-pocket costs.”

Last week, the Catholic bishops distributed an insert for placement in church bulletins all across the country. It called on Catholics to contact HHS to object to the regulation. On their website the bishops are now asking Catholic to write Congress to urge members to support legislation that would overturn the regulation.

As surely as the Bolsheviks murdered the Romanov family at Ekateringburg on July 17, 1918, Barack Obama and his handlers are murdering America.

Why is no elected official stepping forward to halt the murder of America; the assassination of 300 million lifestyles, not even counting the untold millions of freedom lovers who depend on the USA worldwide?

It is now crystal clear that Obama is pushing America into the certainty of a socialist state.

Pretending it isn’t happening is not doing anything to stop the greatest nation ever paid for in blood and sacrifice from disappearing forever from a predator weary world.

It is patently clear that Obama is as much “your agent of change” as Raila Odinga, the despot he actively campaigned for one year before he ran for his own presidential election in 2008.

I still don't feel you are answering the question. You keep talking about business climate, but I'm talking about your business. Not the climate of business as a whole.

I feel you don't want to honestly answer the question... It's not a gotcha thing, it's a reality thing.

I did answer you - some ways some ways no.

Business climate directly impacts on how things are for and and others. It impacts on amount of time needed to get new clients, close deals, etc, all of which impacts on time, effort, etc to keep the same level of income, which is harder now.

Others Panetta is naming to the advisory board include former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick and former Rep. Jane Harman. Panetta, Albright and Gorelick all served in the Bill Clinton administration.

The high-level board provides advice and opinions to the defense secretary on a range of policy issues.

Three times during his tenure as Deputy Attorney General, Eric Holder was made fully aware that intelligence sharing with the Criminal Division was not taking place. As the officer in charge of day-to-day operations at the Department of Justice, his lack of due diligence ensured that the ‘Wall’ between the intelligence and criminal divisions of the FBI that Jamie Gorelick had built would remain in place for the foreseeable future. The ‘Wall’ stood as the Clinton administration and intelligence community saw the rising threat of al Qaeda, Ramzi Yousef was prosecuted for making the bomb used in the 1993 attack upon the World Trade Center and “Bojinka” plot to bomb American jetliners, and our embassies in Africa were attacked in 1998.

Guess who’s been involved intimately with Fannie Mae? Does the name Jamie Gorelick ring a bell? This woman is everywhere, and Jamie Gorelick got a 26 million payout when she left the place. Jamie Gorelick got 26 million to leave, one of Clinton’s guys, Franklin Raines, Franklin Raines, he was kicked out after corrupting the place. He left shortly before he was taking it in the shorts, but he got out of there with no penalty whatsoever. What is it with these Clinton people? This is why we don’t get any tell-all books on the Clinton administration because they were all set up in these sweetheart deals — money, money, money, money — I still can’t get over this. Congress is not helping poor old Doug Gylfe, so now we have millions of Americans who are priced out of home ownership, which is how this all started. “Any rescue policy to stem forecloses could artificially prop up home prices and perpetuate the affordability crisis,” yet I’ll guaran-damn-tee you if government did nothing and home prices continue to fall then tomorrow the AP would write a story whining and moaning about the lack of asset value for people who still do own their houses. We just can’t win with these people.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government is taking on a crucial new role in the nation's health care, designing a basic benefits package for millions of privately insured Americans. A framework for the Obama administration was released Thursday.

The report by independent experts from the Institute of Medicine lays out guidelines for deciding what to include in the new "essential benefits package," how to keep it affordable for small businesses and taxpayers, and also scientifically up to date.

About 68 million Americans, many of them currently insured, ultimately would be affected by the new benefits package. That's bigger than the number of seniors enrolled in Medicare.

The advisers recommended that the package be built on mid-tier health plans currently offered by small employers, expanded to include certain services such as mental health, and squeezed into a real-world budget.

They did not spell out a list of services to cover, but they did recommend that the government require evidence of cost effectiveness.

"In this day and age, when we are talking about fiscal responsibility, it's a report that recognized that we have to take account of what we can afford while trying to make sure that people have adequate coverage," said panel member Elizabeth McGlynn, director of Kaiser Permanente's center for effectiveness and safety research.

Until now, designing benefits has been the job of insurers, employers and state officials. But the new health care law requires insurance companies to provide at least the federally approved package if they want to sell to small businesses, families and individuals through new state markets set to open in 2014.

Most existing workplace plans won't be required to adopt the federal model, but employers and consumer advocates alike predict it will become the nation's benchmark for health insurance over time.

With the nation divided over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law, and Republicans condemning it as a government takeover, the administration reacted cautiously to the recommendations.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that officials would hold "listening sessions" around the country before any final decisions are made, which could take months. The IOM panel recommended an extensive effort to engage the public.

"Before we put forward a proposal, it is critical that we hear from the American people," Sebelius said. The law extends coverage to about 30 million uninsured people.

Actually, work on the benefits package is already well under way within the HHS department. On the outside, a huge lobbying campaign to shape the final package is about to take off.

Employer groups - particularly those representing low-wage industries - want to keep benefits fairly basic. Since the government is going to be subsidizing coverage for millions of people, a generous plan will drive up costs for taxpayers, they argue. But consumer and patient advocacy groups that helped pass the overhaul law want to make sure their priorities are included.

The health care law requires that essential benefits include outpatient, hospital, emergency, maternal, newborn and children's care, prescription drugs, mental health and substance abuse treatment, rehabilitation, labs, prevention and wellness. But Congress gave the administration lots of leeway to determine the specifics.

In its 300-page report, the Institute of Medicine panel stressed that the package has to be affordable if Obama's overhaul is going to stand the test of time.

The panel used the analogy of a shopper at the supermarket. One option is to fill up your cart with all the groceries you want, and find out the cost at the register.

"The other option is to walk into the store with a firm idea of what you can spend and to fill the cart carefully, with only enough food to fit within your budget," the advisers said. "The committee recommends that (the administration) take the latter approach."

The first option compares to what the government now does with Medicare and Medicaid - it pays all the bills. But the advisers said Obama's plan should be on a budget.

The panel proposed a tough financial test. Few small employer plans currently offer comprehensive mental health coverage, for example. As such services are added, the total cost of the package should stay within a realistic budget target to be set by the administration. That would help keep premiums affordable.

"Without a budget, you could decide to live in a 10,000 square-foot house overlooking the ocean and drive a Jaguar," McGlynn said.

The panel's rough estimate put annual premiums for individual coverage under the plan at $5,500 to $7,000 in 2014, comparable to what employers pay now.

Interest groups will be poring over the recommendations.

"Moving forward, this is truly a lynchpin issue," said Neil Trautwein, vice president for benefits policy at the National Retail Federation. "I think there will be a tug-of-war on this proposal."

The Institute of Medicine is an independent organization advising the government on technical issues.

Hawker Beechcraft Chairman and CEO Bill Boisture said targeting of the private aircraft industry both in terms of user fees and fiscal proposals appears to be intentional, and called fiscal policies such as user fees and depreciation schedules “irresponsible.”

The perceived attacks have damaged customer confidence, and contributed to some, perhaps the last 25 percent, of all employee layoffs and workforce reductions, Boisture said. “To have singled out our industry is irresponsible,” he said. “It must be intended,” he said in later comments.

In other remarks, Boisture said his staff decided long ago to treat the current recession as “the new normal,” and unfortunately that has proven true. “The only consistent thing we see is inconsistency,” he said. He added that, “…2012 looks like 2011, which looks like 2010.” What remains is a smaller, agile, efficient, and flexible company, he said. Nearly one million square feet of factory space has been closed, and 20,000 parts have been transferred to third-party manufacturers or to facilities in Mexico.

He said the new strategy to improve and retrofit existing products is seen in the Hawker 400XPR upgrades. “It is a very significant step in that direction,” he said. The company is testing the T-6 Texan as an attack aircraft that will be offered to the world’s air forces. Many of the countries planning to use the T-6 already have them in use as trainers. Another military push is the King Air, now offered for special missions and medical evacuation. Nearly a third of all special missions aircraft in use are built by Hawker Beechcraft.

The upgrades apply as well to the piston-engine models, the twin-engine Baron, and the Bonanza, which received newly designed interiors and cabin temperature control systems.

Hawker Beechcraft is continuing to expand and improve service centers, with a new one about to open in Wilmington, Del., and another just announced in Mexico.

Asked about a downgrade by Moody’s that indicates Hawker is not expected to return to profitability soon, Boisture said, “We are in good standing with our suppliers, customers, and our people. We have strong ownership. We are in good company [concerning the Moody’s rating]. About half the companies in Europe are on the same list.”

Hawker Executive Vice President Shawn Vick, who noted the King Air 250 is getting good reviews around the world for its short- and high-altitude runway capabilities, also took a swipe at the Obama administration. “Hopefully this nonsense ends soon and we can all get back to work,” he said.

The reports are not good, disturbing even. I have heard basically the same story four times in the last 10 days, and the people doing the talking are in New York and Washington and are spread across the political spectrum.

The gist is this: President Obama has become a lone wolf, a stranger to his own government. He talks mostly, and sometimes only, to friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett and to David Axelrod, his political strategist.

Everybody else, including members of his Cabinet, have little face time with him except for brief meetings that serve as photo ops. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner both have complained, according to people who have talked to them, that they are shut out of important decisions.

The president’s workdays are said to end early, often at 4 p.m. He usually has dinner in the family residence with his wife and daughters, then retreats to a private office. One person said he takes a stack of briefing books. Others aren’t sure what he does.

If the reports are accurate, and I believe they are, they paint a picture of an isolated man trapped in a collapsing presidency. While there is no indication Obama is walking the halls of the White House late at night, talking to the portraits of former presidents, as Richard Nixon did during Watergate, the reports help explain his odd public remarks.

Obama conceded in one television interview recently that Americans are not “better off than they were four years ago” and said in another that the nation had “gotten a little soft.” Both smacked of a man who feels discouraged and alienated and sparked comparisons to Jimmy Carter, never a good sign.

Blaming the country is political heresy, of course, yet Obama is running out of scapegoats. His allies rarely make affirmative arguments on his behalf anymore, limiting themselves to making excuses for his failure. He and they attack Republicans, George W. Bush, European leaders and Chinese currency manipulation -- and that was just last week.

The blame game isn’t much of a defense for Solyndra and “Fast and Furious,” the emerging twin scandals that paint a picture of incompetence at best.

Obama himself is spending his public time pushing a $450 billion “jobs” bill -- really another stimulus in disguise -- that even Senate Democrats won’t support. He grimly flogged it repeatedly at his Thursday press conference, even though snowballs in hell have a better chance of survival.

If he cracked a single smile at the hour-plus event, I missed it. He seems happy only on the campaign trail, where the adoration of the crowd lifts his spirits.

When it comes to getting America back on track to economic growth, he is running on vapors. Yet he shows no inclination to adopt any ideas other than his own Big Government grab. His itch for higher taxes verges on a fetish.

Harvey Golub, former chairman of American Express, called the “jobs” bill an incoherent mess. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, he said that among other flaws, the bill includes an unheard of retroactive tax hike on the holders of municipal bonds.

“Many of us have suspected that economic illiterates were setting the economic policy of this administration,” Golub wrote, adding that the bill “reveals a depth of cluelessness that boggles the mind.”

The public increasingly shares the sentiment. A new Quinnipiac polls finds that 55 percent now disapprove of Obama’s job performance, with only 41 percent approving. A mere 29 percent say the economy will improve if the president gets four more years.

The election, unfortunately, is nearly 13 months away.

The way Obama’s behaving, by then we’ll all be talking to portraits of past presidents, asking why this one turned out to be such a flop.

They doth protest too much

Even as desperate Pander-crats, including the president, continue to baby-talk the Wall Street hooligans, some of whom have violently attacked police, Mayor Bloomberg gets the point and tone just right.

“What they’re trying to do is take the jobs away from people working in this city,” the mayor told radio man John Gambling Friday. “And some of the labor unions, the municipal unions that are participating, their salaries come from the taxes paid by the people they are trying to vilify.”

Sanity also comes from readers. Sheri Rosen said she works downtown, at 111 Broadway, and is sick of the filth and mayhem.

“We work very hard every day for not that much money,” she writes. “We don’t camp out at a park and act like animals by urinating and stealing milk from the coffee vendors that are also trying to make a living.”

She blasted Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Comptroller John Liu for supporting the demonstrators, saying, “True New Yorkers who work hard for their money won’t forget this on Election Day.”

Reader Harold Theurer sees another angle. Noting the passing of Steve Jobs, he wonders how many protesters carrying Apple products understand how those gadgets came to exist.

“What started out as two men in a garage with ideas and passion would have been nothing more than two guys in a garage with ideas and passion had it not been for an IPO on Dec. 12, 1980, when Apple went public at $22 per share,” he writes.

“Big Bad Wall Street raised $101 million for Mr. Jobs to expand his ideas, create jobs and change the landscape of technology. The next time any of the Wall Street occupiers makes an iTune purchase, it can be traced back to some Big Bad Banker’s belief in Mr. Jobs and his company.”

Class dismissed.

‘Apolitical’ Doublespeak

Future historians looking for the tenor of our era could do worse than rummage through New York Times editorials. They’ll find an archive of incredibly bad ideas and exhibits of the liberal mindset that claims only conservatives have politics.

Take a recent piece on ObamaCare. After noting that the Supreme Court is likely to decide the issue next year, the Times says, “The court must not let politics influence its decision.” Then it goes on to demand the court support the law, saying the individual mandate and “and all other provisions . . . are constitutional and should be upheld.”

No politics there!

Go to blazes, judge!

City Hall ought to get a restraining order against federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis. Not content with demanding a quota system for nonwhite firefighters, the Brooklyn jurist has turned a discrimination complaint into a four-year personal war against Mayor Bloomberg and the FDNY. He ruled last week that a special monitor must oversee all aspects of hiring, training and promotion “for at least 10 years.”

The city is appealing, but it should accept the ruling on one condition: Garaufis sheds his judicial robes to become fire commissioner. That way he’d have to live in the real world instead of looking down on it

Boys of winter

Buck up, Yankee fans. Next year begins on Feb. 19, when pitchers and catchers report to spring training.

WASHINGTON — In President Barack Obama's sales pitch for his jobs bill, there are two versions of reality: The one in his speeches and the one actually unfolding in Washington.

When Obama accuses Republicans of standing in the way of his nearly $450 billion plan, he ignores the fact that his own party has struggled to unite behind the proposal.

When the president says Republicans haven't explained what they oppose in the plan, he skips over the fact that Republicans who control the House actually have done that in detail.

And when he calls on Congress to "pass this bill now," he slides past the point that Democrats control the Senate and were never prepared to move immediately, given other priorities. Senators are expected to vote Tuesday on opening debate on the bill, a month after the president unveiled it with a call for its immediate passage.

To be sure, Obama is not the only one engaging in rhetorical excesses. But he is the president, and as such, his constant remarks on the bill draw the most attention and scrutiny.

The disconnect between what Obama says about his jobs bill and what stands as the political reality flow from his broader aim: to rally the public behind his cause and get Congress to act, or, if not, to pin blame on Republicans.

He is waging a campaign, one in which nuance and context and competing responses don't always fit in if they don't help make the case.

For example, when Obama says his jobs plan is made up of ideas that have historically had bipartisan support, he stops the point there. Not mentioned is that Republicans have never embraced the tax increases that he is proposing to cover the cost of his plan.

Likewise, from city to city, Obama is demanding that Congress act (he means Republicans) while it has been clear for weeks that the GOP will not support all of his bill, to say the least. Individual elements of it may well pass, such as Obama's proposal to extend and expand a payroll tax cut. But Republicans strongly oppose the president's proposed new spending and his plan to raise taxes on millionaires to pay for the package.

The fight over the legislative proposal has become something much bigger: a critical test of the president's powers of persuading the public heading into the 2012 presidential campaign, and of Republicans' ability to deny him a win and reap victory for themselves.

"He knows it's not going to pass. He's betting that voters won't pick up on it, or even if they do they will blame Congress and he can run against the 'do-nothing Congress,'" said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning and Development.

John Sides, political science professor at George Washington University, said Obama's approach on the jobs bill is "more about campaigning than governing."

"He's mostly just going around talking about this and drawing contrasts with what the Republicans want and what he wants and not really trying to work these legislative levers he might be able to use to get this passed," Sides said. "That just suggests to me that he is ready to use a failed jobs bill as a campaign message against the Republicans."

The president's opponents aren't exactly laying it all out, either.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., tried to force a vote on the bill last week, innocently claiming that the president was entitled to one. McConnell knew full well that the result would be failure for the legislation and an embarrassment for Obama.

House Speaker John Boehner, meanwhile, claimed that Obama has "given up on the country and decided to campaign full-time" instead of seeking common ground with the GOP. But Boehner neglected to mention that Obama's past attempts at compromise with Republicans often yielded scant results, as Obama himself pointed out.

The approach for Obama, who is seeking a second term in a dismal economy, is far different than the one he took when running for president. He criticized the GOP then, but talked about ending blue-state and red-state America, replacing it with one America, fixing the broken political system, and fundamentally changing Washington.

That ended up being change he could not bring about, and now analysts say Obama may have little choice but to campaign more narrowly by attacking opponents rather than trying to bring people together.

Obama's attempts at compromise with the GOP on the debt ceiling and budget won him little in the way of policy, instead engendering frustration from Democrats who saw him as caving to Republican demands.

The new, combative Obama isn't looking for compromise. He's looking for a win. And if he can't get the legislative victory he says he wants, he has made clear that he's more than willing to take a political win.

It is, he acknowledges, a result his campaign for his jobs bill is designed to achieve.

Talking up the bill in an appearance last month with African-American news websites, Obama said: "I need people to be out there promoting this and pushing this and making sure that everybody understands the details of what this would mean, so that one of two things happen: Either Congress gets it done, or if Congress doesn't get it done, people know exactly what's holding it up."

EDITOR'S NOTE _ An occasional look behind the rhetoric of public officials.

___

October 10, 2011 06:31 AM EDT

Copyright 2011, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

By John TamnyDissembling about the capital destruction debacle that was his Administration's loan guarantee to bankrupt green-energy firm Solyndra, President Obama told ABC News last week that "if we want to compete with China, which is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into this space...we've got to make sure that our guys here in the United States of America at least have a shot."

Of course if the president were better schooled in basic economics, he would well understand that "our guys" do have a shot to compete in this space thanks to U.S. capital markets being the deepest in the world. Thanks to angel financing, venture capital, PIPEs, convertible bonds, bonds themselves, and stock issuance, those with a good idea have myriad options when it comes to marrying their innovation with capital.

And there lies the obvious problem with Solyndra. Unable to raise needed operating funds in the private markets, it was forced to go to the federal government to get what our markets would not provide.

The implications for our economy are similarly obvious. Though $535 million is presently a laughable sum to a government that knows no limits, and which doles out a great deal more to support the waste that increasingly symbolizes Washington, there's an unseen quality to this.

Indeed, what's continuously forgotten by our federal minders is that they have no resources. For the Obama administration to guarantee a $500 million dollar loan is for it to ultimately extract $500 million from the private economy where it might have actually funded a real, economy enhancing concept. Unseen is what Microsofts, Intels and Facebooks (the latter's initial funding $500,000 - Facebook supposedly now worth $75 billion) will never see the light of day thanks to the political class's hubristic belief that it knows better than private markets disciplined by success and failure about where capital should be allocated.

As for President Obama's assertion that we need to fund these ideas to "compete", apparently he's oblivious to the basic truth that an idea is not wealth unless the distribution of that which entrepreneurs create is broad. Assuming the Chinese rush ahead of us in the green technology space, in order for its private companies or its government to achieve a return on investment they'll have to sell their innovations into the marketplace; final destination unknown.

In short, assuming the Chinese crack the alternative energy code on the way to market-changing advances for energy and environmental preservation, Americans will enjoy them as though they'd been conceived in Silicon Valley. And for those eager to make the laughable assertion that the Chinese will not sell us those advances, we'll simply purchase them from those they do sell to.

Of course if the opposite occurs, as in if this rush to alternative energy with the money of others proves the capital wasting joke that an already skeptical marketplace presumes, the American economy will be better off for Americans not wasting human, physical and financial capital on something of no economic value. The reality is that the Japanese are ahead of us with televisions, the Italians perhaps are with shoes and clothing, and the Brazilians harvest better coffee beans, but we enjoy all three thanks to our own comparative productivity in other areas.

Basically we let others make our televisions, suits and coffee, and this gives us time to create Google, Coca-Cola and Amazon. A more wealth enhancing trading relationship would be hard to find, but with our president laboring under the absurd notion that trade is war and the imports that reward our productivity hurt us, he's used and is using his power of taxation to force Americans to fund that which the markets don't presently want.

Importantly, there's a lesson here for many on the right in this country deluded by the economy-sapping notion of "energy independence." Just as we'll be the beneficiaries of any worthy Chinese advancements in green technology should they ever materialize, so will we be able to consume the world's oil irrespective of where it's discovered as though it bubbled up in West Texas. Oil is not wealth until it reaches the marketplace, U.S. interests are "size buyers" of the petroleum product, and with there existing no control over the final destination of any commodity, a world awash in oil means we'll purchase as much as we want for as long as we want at the global price.

At present there exists the fiction that oil is expensive when in fact oil is only expensive insofar as the dollar is cheap, so commentators who should know better argue for drilling anywhere and everywhere with an eye on "creating jobs." It should be stressed that this writer has no objection to drilling anywhere and everywhere, but with Texas's implosion (and the resulting collapse of banks bailed out by U.S. taxpayers) during the strong dollar ‘80s in mind, it should be said that we always eventually return to a strong dollar, the latter will quickly expose much of this excitement about oil deposits stateside as non-economic, so let's at least curb our enthusiasm.

Oil is no different than any other commodity desired by market actors, and we should view it much as we do increasingly worthless solar panels made in the U.S. If we want either, there's a market we can enter for both.

Though unaware when he uttered it last week, President Obama's illiterate defense of government subsidization of green energy explains exactly why the government shouldn't be subsidizing it. As he notes the Chinese are spending a lot more on alternative energies than we are, which means we can sit back and either see them fail, or better yet, see them succeed on the way to importing their innovations. Either way we win.

checkTextResizerCookie('article_body'); John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets and Forbes Opinions, a senior economic adviser to H.C. Wainwright Economics, and a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research and Trading (www.trtadvisors.com). He can be reached at jtamny@realclearmarkets.com.